It's a minor work in the Yimou canon, but a major visual treat.

Fan's fly-on-the-wall perspective enables the viewer to empathize with all the players in the family drama, unlikely to have a happy ending.

Heavyhearted without being heavy-handed, Corbijn's lyrical movie is about a man who has built his own cell and become his own jailer.

The real-life career criminal Jacques Mesrine is seen in all his wild, scary, violent glory.

A superbly creepy story.

By turns rowdy and rueful, The Switch is a comedy with serious ramifications, not least of which is the question, what makes a family?

At its best, Nanny McPhee Returns has the playful surrealism of "Babe," if "Babe" had been directed by Terry Gilliam.

Like Kevin's lucky fortune cookie, Lottery Ticket is a sweet treat with a substantive message.

This based-on-real-life tale of artistic aspirations and international politics is packed with more corn than an Iowa silo.

What really matters is that the film works. It's a genuinely suspenseful, no-holds-barred masterpiece of sex 'n' horror exploitation.

Zany screwball farce.

Bar-Lev tells Tillman's story "Rashomon"-style, incorporating multiple perspectives on Tillman's politics (left-liberal), religion (atheist), and personal relations (he married Marie, his first and only girlfriend). Still, it is a documentary with more details of how he died than how he lived.

A profoundly unnerving historical document.

It lacks the resonances of Gilbert's book.

The trailers already have given away the "surprise" cameos in The Expendables, so try not to blink when Stallone goes into a church (shades of John Woo) to meet his mystery boss, played by a bald-pated, trademark smirking Bruce Willis.

A ridiculously entertaining romp based on the graphic novels of Bryan Lee O'Malley and directed, with mash-up mastery, by Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead).

Like "The Square," the startling Down Under noir released a few months ago, Animal Kingdom explores the down and dirty side of human nature, fraught with greed, suspicion, and betrayal.

There's a fine line between stupid comedy that's actually pretty smart and stupid comedy that's just dumb, and The Other Guys crosses the line - into realms of unredeeming dunderheadedness - more often than it should.

Aimed at teens and tweens, the almost-squeaky-clean Step Up 3-D shamelessly piles on the corn, stacking it so high that it's bound to tilt over and collapse.

Herman Melville would have dug this film. Because at bottom, it's less about the epic struggle of human vs. nature, or the soaring ambitions of the human spirit than about obsession.

As in David Lean's "Brief Encounter," the suspense in Cairo Time comes from what doesn't happen between its pair of "lovers."

Offers a view of war that is anything but epic. Instead of sweeping battles and swooping fighter planes, in Lebanon we are brought into the impossibly claustrophobic world of a lone tank crew.

Callan McAuliffe, a handsome Australian youth, looks right as the perma-press Bryce.

Dinner for Schmucks goes up in flames. Amusingly, perhaps -- but creatively, too.

Parents in a masochistic mood can compound the headache-inducing experience by paying extra for the 3-D version.

The byplay between Efron and newcomer Tahan as his brother has a warmth and intimacy that establish the film's tone. The performances carry the film.

All in all, not good, but not bad.

The period details - the cars, the clothes, the old storefronts along Main Street - are attentively described. But it's Duvall, spooky, sly, and sad, who makes all the props and the plot twists seem real.

The overall tone of the film is sunny, with Ramona and Beezus resiliently turning life's lemons into lemonade.

Salt offers a sloppy concoction of story elements from '70s espionage classics - the sinister black ops of "Three Days of the Condor," the nuclear dread of "Fail-Safe," the political-assassination scenarios of "The Day of the Jackal."

Although the movie intends to incite viewers to social action, it is just as likely to paralyze them with fear.

Thanks to the evocative cinematography of Ed Lachman, it is bathed in a celestial light that cannot penetrate the existential darkness of its characters.

Davis does the most thorough job of capturing Basquiat, man, artist, and life force.

Stymied by a clunking script, crammed with expository exchanges and urgent blather.

The cast is full of fresh-faced unknowns ready for their close-ups. Most likely to succeed is Kayla Jackson, an almond-eyed dreamer, as Brittany, anchor of the Ovations and of her family.

On the whole, the movie is more Cheez Whiz than wizardly.

Short, sweet-and-sour, and amusing rather than funny, Despicable Me can't help but be likable.

A preposterous, if admittedly fun, exercise in sci-fi/horror mayhem.

Here are five gifted actors at the top of their games as five characters in search of what makes a family.

This is no-nonsense, let's-get-to-it business, and will probably be less satisfying, and less clear, to viewers unfamiliar with the source material.

Her (Angela Ismailos) generic questions about the politics, economics, and aesthetics of film yield predictably generic responses from her subjects.

Unfortunately, this all proceeds at a supersonic tempo, with Shyamalan's directorial finger stuck on the fast-forward button. Significant plot points whiz by in this movie equivalent of speed-dating.

The Twilight star's line-readings have become like Edward and his bloodsucking kin: They lack a pulse.

The film drifts along on a stream of humiliation jokes - physical, emotional, sexual, hairpiece-ial.

According to this courageous, you-are-there documentary, the platoon took enemy fire almost every day, perhaps the longest exposure to combat the U.S. has engaged in since World War II.

Diaz works that trademark mix of ditziness, sexiness, and brassiness.

Although Toy Story 3 plays with themes of aging and obsolescence, it's really a straight-ahead action pic, with the toys planning, and attempting, their escape and rescue missions. (Hey, it's The A-Team!)

A mercifully fleet and lamentably uninteresting adaptation of the DC Comic about a war-weary Confederate soldier.

It is not to everyone's taste. But if you like the lush film operas of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Douglas Sirk, or Luchino Visconti, this one's for you.

The film gracefully telescopes a lot of information in its brief running time.

At times Let It Rain recalls one of those Katharine Hepburn comedies where the New Woman gets cut down to size so as not to intimidate the Old-School Men. Yet the film so likably deflates the pompous and pumps up the humble that it's hard not to like.

The kung fu sequences, although enjoyable, probably would not make the Jackie Chan Top 10. However, Chan's acting is his most affecting since the 1993 policer "Crime Story."

Feels like the cinematic equivalent of the BP disaster in the gulf: It's a big-screen oil spill, a needless gushing of macho bluster and wild set pieces, and a waste of millions and millions of dollars.

Offers two hours of luxury and loveliness, music and art, and a bit of sexually charged madness, too.

Stern and Sundberg, best known for their Darfur documentary "The Devil Came on Horseback," did not shrink from the atrocities in Sudan; nor do they shrink from the fame-hungry excesses here.

It's been a long time since a film has conveyed a culture, and a sense of place, with such telling precision. At the same time, Winter's Bone thrums with suspense.

Pretty magical.

Unsettling, intelligent, and way-out-there.

Great? No. Great fun? Oh, yes. Like Sergio and Aldous, this movie messes with your mind, then tickles it.

Gripping, sobering, inspiring stuff.

As doggy movies go, this one gets two paws out of four.

At a certain point, it actually becomes embarrassing to watch Heigl and Kutcher play at being in love.

How bad is Prince of Persia? Whether or not director Mike Newell is to blame, the action sequences lack verve and scope.

"Lousy times make lousy people," someone opines, and maybe that's the point Romero's trying to drive home.

Spiced with melancholy and magic, Micmacs is an imaginative live-action film with the playfulness of an animation like "Ratatouille." Similarly, it is a fable of subterraneans who change how life is lived above ground in a Paris that is both retro and modern.

The talented Hansen-Love, with clarity and economy, manages to avoid the maudlin.

It's a vivid way to contextualize Hypatia's astronomical musings, but it's kind of out there, too.

Sex and the City 2 is a champagne cocktail on a runaway train -- fizzy, sparkly, giddy-making, and splashing all over the place.

Mediogre at best.

Forte and company have managed to make crude and lewd dunderheadedness laugh-out-loud funny here and there, and that, I guess, is something of an achievement.

Tonally, the film from director Anurag Basu has more personalities than Sybil. Basu strictly observes the B-movie convention of giving the audience an embrace, explosion, or chase sequence at regular intervals. If you don't like the genre, wait three minutes.

Solitary Man is a wafer-thin film with a river-deep, mountain-high performance from Douglas.

Scott's reimagining of the legend of Robin Hood has more heft than it does humor, more soulful brooding than snappy thrust-and-parry retorts.

It's also a case of art imitates life imitates art. If that makes it a tribute to a tribute to a classic, then it is no less enjoyable for that.

Michael Elliot, the Philadelphia native who wrote Just Wright as a vehicle for Latifah - and who was on set for most of the shoot - says that Common's earnestness, and eagerness, and his sense of responsibility in carrying the movie, were palpable.

Kilcher is lovely. But sadly, Ka'iulani is a perfunctory biopic of the sort one might encounter on television during Women's History Month.

In the engaging Looking for Eric, Loach, the master of British kitchen sink social drama - tries a bit of imaginary whimsy.

At its best, it's shaggily enjoyable and enjoyably shaggy. It's like steroids on steroids with Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark, disarming arms industrialist, tossing off one-liners like comic grenades.

The contrast in lifestyles is striking, and I suppose one of the themes that Babies is trying to get at is that despite chasm-wide economic and societal differences, infants are really all the same.

As entertaining as it is exasperating.

While on its face, Mother and Child is about the impact of adoption, in its heart Garcia's movie reckons how consequential motherhood is in the calculus of womanhood. The fine actors show how we bond to those not related to us by blood - and also how we love. Bring Kleenex.

It's larky, snarky fun.

Gritty and compelling up to a point, but cheaply exploitive as well.

A movie as generous, stingy, and biting - and memorable - as its six main characters.

The script is boilerplate, the wit pretty much witless.

Cutesy and formulaic and has the approximate depth of a cookie sheet.

The music is symphonic, the cinematography spectacular, the narration — ay, there's the rub. In Oceans, the latest Disney nature documentary, the voice-over almost manages to turn the majestic into the mundane. Almost.

Kick-Ass has punk energy, ace action moves, and a winning sense of absurdist fun.

The Cartel does what good reporters are supposed to do: follow the money.

A movie that feels as if it should have been a masterpiece. As it is, it's flawed, uneven work but deserves careful viewing.

Verdict? Mixed. Loved the slapstick, winced at the toilet humor, and mourned that the female performers were given so little to do. Funeral is funnier the second time around.

A beguiling and subversively funny entertainment that considers art's worth from many angles, including that of guerrilla painters, gallerists, and seasoned collectors.

An overobvious and underwhelming satire about American consumerism run amok.

A very sweet, very slight family movie that scores smiles and tears of joy.

Although The Secret in Their Eyes has neither the power, the artistry, nor the electric energy of its fellow Oscar nominee, France's "A Prophet," the Argentine film nonetheless engages with style, suspense, and seriousness of intent. Criminal intent and otherwise.

In addition to Carell and Fey, Date Night boasts a deft supporting cast...Best of all are a very droll James Franco and Mila Kunis as the downtown hipsters for whom the Fosters are mistaken.

It's a devilishly twisted affair.

Offers a worshipful but insightful portrait of the group - centered, of course, on its charismatic front man.